Public-domain ebook
Language: en1,444 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Essays, Letters & Speeches·American Literature·Archaeology & Anthropology
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #58464.
Daniel G. Brinton’s Essays of an Americanist is a scholarly compilation that tackles the origins, cultures, and languages of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The work opens with a pointed critique of contemporary ethnologists who, Brinton argues, undervalue the psychological depth of “savage” societies, and he proceeds to lay out a systematic framework, legendary, monumental, industrial, linguistic, physical, and geologic, to examine pre‑historic chronology, artifact typology, and the contested affiliations of groups such as the Mound‑builders and the Toltecs. The introductory sections of each part outline his intent to correct prevailing misconceptions, presenting both newly published material and extensively revised essays that draw on the latest research of his time.
Written in the late‑19th‑century academic style of a learned American scholar, the prose is dense, methodical, and often polemical, reflecting the era’s confidence in categorization and comparative analysis. Readers who appreciate thorough historical‑anthropological argumentation, particularly those interested in early American archaeology, comparative mythology, and the linguistic diversity of Native American languages, will find Brinton’s exhaustive surveys and detailed case studies both stimulating and informative.
The opening · free to read
There is a prevailing tendency among ethnologists of to-day to underrate the psychology of savage life. This error arises partly from an unwillingness to go beyond merely physical investigations, partly from judging of the ancient condition of a tribe by that of its modern and degenerate representatives, partly from inability to speak its tongue and to gain the real sense of its expressions, partly from preconceived theories as to what a savage might be expected to know and feel. As against this error I have essayed to show that among very rude tribes we find sentiments of a high character, proving a mental nature of excellent capacity in certain directions.
Several of the Essays have not previously appeared in print, and others have been substantially re-written, so as to bring them up to the latest researches in their special fields. Nevertheless, the reader will find a certain amount of repetition in several of them, a defect which I hope is compensated by the greater clearness which this repetition gives to the special subject discussed.
Philadelphia, February, 1890.
CONTENTS.
The book keeps going
Reading is free forever. Sign up and watch scenes appear while you read.
Scenes Storieta drew for other classics.
New illustrated classics
Once or twice a month: the latest books to get full character casts, scene art, and free comic editions. No account needed.
